September 14th, 2008
I must say that this is the most special Mid- Autumn Celebration I ever had. Apart from the down side of not having a proper moon cake, those types that I really like eg snow skin or those with yam, pandan leaves or green tea flavor with egg yolk in them. But at least I got to try some exotic ones, like the thap cam, which literally means mixture of all ingredients such as sweetened melons strips, sesames and a lot of other different things but the coconut milk certainly was my personally favourite out of the many local types (truth was I only tried these 2 flavours)
But apart from the moon cakes, what made the celebration better was the company and the beautiful moon. I have never seen such brighter and beautiful moon hanging so close to me in the sky. And here I must really talk about the colour of the moon, it was not the bright yellow that we often see on TV, it actually had shades to it, some mellow, some speaks of darker shades, milker when there were white clouds, but it’s radiating glow lighted up the sky around it. And I am glad to have many new friends. At first, it was just a celebration with our friends from English club. But because this is such a special event to keep it to just the few of us, we decided to invite more people to join in the fun, so in the end, friends not just only from the Bach Khoa English club, but also my Vovinam friends, neighbours from our hostel A2, and many friends of friends to celebrate Mid Autumn festival. In the end, we have to squeeze 40 to 50 of us together into my room.
Earlier in the day, Daniel, Sam and I had traveled to Hoan Kiem to see the market for mid autumn festival. I have previously passed by the Hoan Kiem region on bus and the market looked so exciting, with a lot of decorations and toys for the little children. I remembered seeing the sky lanterns yesterday night on the way back from Vovinam and I am determined to get one of those! It had always been my wish to fly one of that myself. As we walked around the lake looking at the festive goods, I couldn’t help being like one of the little kids browsing through all the stores and looking for a lantern that catches my eyes. Finally, when I saw one of the đèn trời, I couldn’t help marveling at how simple it actually was and how beautiful it would become. But even beautiful is the meaning behind the flying of these lanterns, as told by the lady selling me the lanterns, they carried with them the wishes of those who flew them and I was really looking forward to fly my lantern later.
At first, I was overwhelmed to see the number of people who came. Half of them I have not seen them as I have agreed to Huong to bring her high school friends over. However, it soon turned out to be especially fun as one of them played the guitar and sang very well. He and Daniel took turns serenading us with different songs and even our Czechs friends sang a song for us and their sounded like angels. After the feasting and the sing-along session, we went out to fly the lanterns. We were refused permission to fly the lanterns at the courtyard of our place, so we had no choice but to fly the lanterns at a busy intersection outside Bach Khoa Stadium. As there were so many of us, and quite a few foreigners, we became “traffic stoppers” as passerby stopped to see us fly our lanterns. All of us were eager to write down our wishes on Post-stick and to attach it to the lanterns. As I watched the lanterns flew up one by one with the wishes of many others, I waited for my turn to get to the pencil (there was only one to share). It was sweet that Huong’ friends motioned me to pin my wishes up on the last lantern, despite the fact that many of them had not had their turns yet.
I enjoyed today not only because of the lantern flying, but because of the simplicity of the Vietnamese friends which really was charming. I like the way that it doesn’t take much for them to be happy. It doesn’t have to be a grand feast that I am always used to back in Singapore when people gather together. This is one of the most important lessons that I felt I have learnt from my Vietnamese friends, and I am glad to be introduced to a simple way of being happy
shi lei
Mid Autumn Festival celebration was indeed an eye-opener for me, I never expected it to be celebrated in such a big scale. There were lanterns, mooncakes and lots of other activities going around Hanoi. In particular, we decided to hold a mid - autumn celebration for our English Club, other guests were invited as well, in total there were many people , a majority from Vietnam, but also a handful from America and The Czech Republic. It was an enjoyable evening of song, jokes, games, and food!, there was a huge variety of mooncakes at the event, brought by various Vietnamese students!, all of which were very delicious. The link between a China and Vietnam can really be seen through the common celebration of this festival. It is somewhat like in Singapore , but on a larger scale, and with different varieties of mooncakes!
One of the differences is the lanterns that we lit up, as mentioned by Shi Lei, to send our wishes up to the sky for heaven to receive. We lit up our lanterns along the road side, in which many people stopped their motobikes to take a look, or to ask us where we bought the lanterns, a truly popular sight and function ! In Singapore, this was allowed in the past but not anymore as my friend mentioned that in the past, somebody complained about the shinning object in the sky , wondering if it was a meteor, upon knowing what it was, questions were still asked on the safety of these lanterns, as they might be a distraction for airplanes, which may be the reason why it is disbanded in Singapore, but for Vietnam, it is still allowed and is a beautiful sight to behind, but I do question the safety of this practice as well in terms of towards passing airplanes...food for thought.
Here's a video introduction of the events of that day! Enjoy
Daniel Foo
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